BNW Deity Tier List

[beetle]

Hi guys in my opinion Austria should be lower on the list. But I guess I am just playing them wrong. Please advice!

Aspects like Austria being ranked so highly is why consentient made his own tier list. Consentient’s ranking is more systematic, and the reasoning for each rating is coherent and transparent. Consentient has just five tiers (any more than that is not really justifiable), and he has Austria as below average. You will still disagree with a few things I am sure, but it is robust enough that disagreements only change the relative ranking by a small amount.

It sucks in the long run because I am usually only getting a mediocre or worse city location. And usually a lot of city states have the same luxury so I might also run into a happiness problem for a not so useful city. It is also often hard to defend annexed city states in far off locations.

You have to be picky with puppets. My initial tendency with Austria was puppet any CS that I could afford any time they were about to go out of ally status. That does not work well!

Puppet CS that are neighbors, so they are a natural extension of your empire. For remote CS, only puppet those that are working one of the better NW, are in highly defensible terrain, or are getting you a new lux or essential strategics.

As with any civ, CS allies are much stronger than CS puppets! Since Austrian UA requires that CS first be allies, that makes the UA kind of counter-productive! Also, as you observe, Austrian UA is not as good as Venice MoV -- since you cannot use it to snip CS allies from a rival.

 

[miaasma]

one thing i'm not sure about that i've seen a lot:

what are the advantages of a desert start apart from DF? pantheons are hit or miss at high difficulties and i've seen AI with 2 surrounding flat non-flood plain desert tiles get DF, so that seems like an unreliable advantage. so other than that, what is it about them that makes them good? flood plains wheat? many resources that spawn on flat desert (incense, marble) are pretty unworkable for most of the game, generating only gold and in the latter's case a little production. unless you start on a hill (provided there are any), production will slow to a crawl since most production resources on other terrain (stone, horses, deer) either don't spawn at all in the desert or provide reduced yields

so that's my confusion regarding desert starts. other than DF and petra, i cannot understand why these starts could ever be favourable; in my opinion they're at best hit or miss. but i could be wrong so i would appreciate an explanation from better players (i play at immortal inconsistently)

 

[Aea]

one thing i'm not sure about that i've seen a lot:

what are the advantages of a desert start apart from DF? pantheons are hit or miss at high difficulties and i've seen AI with 2 surrounding flat non-flood plain desert tiles get DF, so that seems like an unreliable advantage. so other than that, what is it about them that makes them good? flood plains wheat? many resources that spawn on flat desert (incense, marble) are pretty unworkable for most of the game, generating only gold and in the latter's case a little production. unless you start on a hill (provided there are any), production will slow to a crawl since most production resources on other terrain (stone, horses, deer) either don't spawn at all in the desert or provide reduced yields

so that's my confusion regarding desert starts. other than DF and petra, i cannot understand why these starts could ever be favourable; in my opinion they're at best hit or miss. but i could be wrong so i would appreciate an explanation from better players (i play at immortal inconsistently)

That's the thing, desert is a gamble. If your gamble works out you get a super strong start. If it doesn't you're generally slightly worse off.

 

[miaasma]

that's what i've understood, but i see most people (maybe i'm wrong about this) considering desert starts as an overall boon, rather than what i consider to be a total tossup. additionally, in my experience, they tend to turn up worse more often than good on higher difficulties for the reasons i mentioned. so i figured i had to be missing something

 

[Sclb]

Dessert or NW is pretty much the only way that you can get a good religion with pagoda for example on deity. But it is still a gamble.

 

[beetle]

Kind of OT, except that start bias effects the civ ranking.

i see most people (maybe i'm wrong about this) considering desert starts as an overall boon, rather than what i consider to be a total tossup.

Desert tiles are worse than plains or grassland or forest or even tundra. But the game uses an algorithm for initial civ placement, and that algorithm over compensates desert starts. Your city has to absolutely huge before a few unworkable tiles is an issue, so a few dessert tiles, not unlike a few mountain tiles, do not matter at all.

Most people consider desert starts an overall boon because those starts, as compared to average, will have extra lux. Deserts starts are not bad because all hills are equal, and flood plains give plenty of food. So a desert start means extra resources. Access to the strongest pantheon is a decent buff on top of that. The ability to build Petra is just icing on the cake.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

You'll also find clumps of sheep on desert hills, so if you can settle a river with some hills, and sheep nearby, you get pretty good production.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Desert tiles are worse than plains or grassland or forest or even tundra.

Flat desert tiles

As you already pointed desert hills have the same as any hill while floodplains have as much as grassland. Add to this the 31 oasis and the added resources you and Nigel_Tufnel2 mentioned and you have usually a very good start. (Desert also often have marble and while it's on useless flat tiles, you don't have to work the tile to get the wonder bonus, in case you want to get some early wonders of course which on Deity is risky at best)
OTOH additional cities might suck because as far as i know, the world builder algorithm only accounts for starting location, but nobody forces you to settle expos on desert even if you have Desert Folklore.

 

[miaasma]

Most people consider desert starts an overall boon because those starts, as compared to average, will have extra lux..

that makes sense. i still find the starts to be quite slow because while they are food heavy (flood plains, oasis, plantation lux), production is harder to come by with only sheep and hills/mine lux to rely on. so this becomes a problem on higher difficulties for me. perhaps i need to adjust some more

on the other hand i tend to get rich way faster when i start on flood plains due to lux tile yields and the sheer number of copies i start with, making trading a breeze

edit: i only posted in this thread because i'm currently playing Morocco, which has a desert bias, and i find that this tier list overrates them substantially. the other tier list on here (i forget who made it, sorry) puts them in a more realistic position in my opinion. if only kasbahs got a yield increase from a tech

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Morocco really isn't a top civ. Kasbah on non river hills are actually nice, at least before Chemistry but on flat desert they suck big times because flat desert is useless to start with and they come rather late so they won't help you with early growth/production issue.
You probably want to work some mines to get production. Food is important, but food alone won't help you much. Prior to Civil Service working 3 tiles won't grow you enough anyway. I often work 1-2 mines to get important buildings before CS and then switch to riverside farms once they give you 4 (and to prepare for the Universities), it's also the approximate time you will have aqueducts. If the mines have luxuries or Iron, it's all the better of course.

Other list was made by Consentient. It's a nice list if you make use of your military but you might disagree with some rankings if you play very peaceful. I guess there isn't a definitive list. There are clearly superior (OP) civilizations and clear loosers everyone agrees on, but middle-top or middle-bottom depends a lot on how you play a given civ.

 

[Iberian]

Morocco isn't that great but if you get lucky and have a 10 desert hill tile capital on a river like I did once you start to wonder.

Same with the Dutch, if you get a few magical cities with 5-8 polders or I assume the French with their Chateaus but since I almost never play for a cultural victory I cannot confirm this one.

 

[Aea]

Morocco isn't that great but if you get lucky and have a 10 desert hill tile capital on a river like I did once you start to wonder.

Same with the Dutch, if you get a few magical cities with 5-8 polders or I assume the French with their Chateaus but since I almost never play for a cultural victory I cannot confirm this one.

I never seem to get Polders as Netherlands

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Netherlands is probable the civ that benefits from Desert start the most, as Polders can be built on flood plains with base 2 rather than 1 on marshes.

But yeah, very rare.

 

[stormtrooper412]

I never seem to get Polders as Netherlands

try this http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=552022

 

[Aea]

try this http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=552022

Not so much that I couldn't engineer (or find a save), it's just that the last 2 or 3 times I've tried Netherlands on MP I had zero flood plains and zero marsh near me.

Frustrating!

 

[miaasma]

Morocco really isn't a top civ. Kasbah on non river hills are actually nice, at least before Chemistry but on flat desert they suck big times because flat desert is useless to start with and they come rather late so they won't help you with early growth/production issue.
You probably want to work some mines to get production. Food is important, but food alone won't help you much. Prior to Civil Service working 3 tiles won't grow you enough anyway. I often work 1-2 mines to get important buildings before CS and then switch to riverside farms once they give you 4 (and to prepare for the Universities), it's also the approximate time you will have aqueducts. If the mines have luxuries or Iron, it's all the better of course.

Other list was made by Consentient. It's a nice list if you make use of your military but you might disagree with some rankings if you play very peaceful. I guess there isn't a definitive list. There are clearly superior (OP) civilizations and clear loosers everyone agrees on, but middle-top or middle-bottom depends a lot on how you play a given civ.

i typically don't warmonger a lot but i still liked at least most components of the list, including Morocco being considered a lower tier civ

the only time i ever really build kasbahs is if i manage to get Petra, in which case they make flat desert tiles have decent yields. other than that it's rare, maybe on the occasional flood plain tile if my city is lacking in production but even that seems pretty inconsequential

 

[Iberian]

I never seem to get Polders as Netherlands

Same experience. I don't know how many Dutch games I played before I decided to setup a game and re-roll till I had a decent start. Even with a re-rolled start it was just okay but really not that great compared to Tier 1 civs.

 

[beetle]

the only time i ever really build kasbahs is if i manage to get Petra, in which case they make flat desert tiles have decent yields. other than that it's rare, maybe on the occasional flood plain tile if my city is lacking in production but even that seems pretty inconsequential

Dessert hills is pretty much the only better-than-normal combo.

Same experience. I don't know how many Dutch games I played before I decided to setup a game and re-roll till I had a decent start. Even with a re-rolled start it was just okay but really not that great compared to Tier 1 civs.

It is a shame because their UI is a pretty strong tile buff, comparable to Incan actually -- but Inca can use their UI easily!

France UI is also such that it is pretty easy to put down multiples that you can work.

 

[Smote]

huns can actually do a really nice sea rush... battering ram under trireme gets +250% vs city on amphib attack and is defended from bombard by trireme...

 

[Earthangel81]

huns can actually do a really nice sea rush... battering ram under trireme gets +250% vs city on amphib attack and is defended from bombard by trireme...

Sounds like a great strategy. Only problem is that the huns have no coastal start bias. So I usually cannot get a tireme out early. Even if I could, the target city must be coastal as well. Quite unlikely...

Maybe a set up a game specifically to test this strategy ...